Kurdish Religious Prisoner Kamran Sheikheh Executed After 15 Years of Imprisonment
Hengaw: Thursday, July 25, 2024
The execution of Kamran Sheikheh, a Kurdish religious prisoner from Mahabad, was carried out in the Central Prison of Urmia after 15 years of imprisonment. He was the last defendant in a case where the sentences of all seven individuals involved were executed in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past eight months.
According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution of Kamran Sheikheh, a religious prisoner from Mahabad, was carried out at dawn on Thursday, July 25, 2024, in the Central Prison of Urmia. He had been transferred to solitary confinement yesterday after having his final meeting with his family.
Kamran Sheikheh was the seventh and last defendant in a case in which all defendants were sentenced to death by the judicial system of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a completely opaque, unjust, and illegal trial. Their sentences were executed in the Ghezel Hesar and Urmia prisons during the past eight months, after 15 years of imprisonment.
It is worth noting that Kamran Sheikheh was transferred from Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj to Mahabad Central Prison, on Saturday, June 1, and recently to Urmia Central Prison for unknown reasons and without prior notice.
Kamran Sheikheh and six other defendants were sentenced to death by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Moqiseh, on charges such as "acting against national security," "propaganda against the government," "membership in Salafi groups," and "corruption on earth," in connection with the murder case of "Abdolrahim Tina," a resident of the village of Laj, a suburb of Mahabad.
This sentence was overturned by Branch 41 of the Supreme Court, presided over by Judge Razini, in 2016, and the case was sent back to Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran for retrial. In June 2018, the seven were again sentenced to death on charges of "corruption on earth" by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salavati.
The sentence was confirmed under repeated pressure from the Urmia Intelligence Department by Branch 41 of the Supreme Court and officially announced to Mahmoud Vali Zadeh Tabatabei, the lawyer for these Kurdish religious prisoners, on Monday, March 4, 2019.
Earlier, on Wednesday, May 15, Khosraw Basharat, a co-defendant of Kamran Sheikheh, was executed at dawn in Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj, in the fifteenth year of his sentence.
It is worth mentioning that, on Wednesday, May 2, the execution of Anwar Khezri, the fifth defendant in this case, was also carried out in Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj, in complete silence.
Additionally, in the fall and winter of last year, the execution sentences of four other defendants in the case, named Davud Abdullahi, Farhad Salimi, Ayoub Karimi, and Qasem Abasteh, were carried out in Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj.
Farhad Salimi, Anwar Khezri, Qasem Abasteh, Davud Abdollahi, Khosraw Basharat, Kamran Sheikheh, and Ayoub Karimi were arrested by Iranian security forces on December 7, 2009, and initially transferred to the detention center of the Urmia Intelligence Department, and then to Gohardasht Prison. They were transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj, on August 1 last year after the evacuation of that prison.
